The Vatican's outer ward waited beyond the hill in a pale-gold shimmer that most people would never notice. From where Noctis stood among the dry grass and old stone at the ridge, the field looked almost calm through Omni Eyes, its Tier 2 detection lines flowing across the roads and walls below like sunlight caught beneath clear water. Beyond it, the higher layers rose around Vatican City in increasingly dense structures of scripture, halos, and holy formation patterns, bright enough to make the center of the city look as though another dawn had settled over the domes.
Noctis studied the outer boundary for another few seconds, then let his gaze move toward the innermost Tier 6 ward. The system was impressive because it had been built with patience rather than brute force, each layer prepared to identify, weaken, bind, and finally destroy whatever approached from the wrong side. It would have been a nightmare for an ordinary vampire or demon. For him, it was a complicated lock built around a key it had never anticipated.
"Nothing complicated," he said quietly, more to himself than anyone else.
He stepped down from the hill and moved toward the closest section of the outer ward. The road below curved around a low stone wall and disappeared behind a narrow line of cypress trees, while the morning traffic farther away carried on without any awareness that a supernatural barrier stretched over the city-state in front of them. Noctis did not bother concealing his presence yet. He wanted to see exactly how the ward responded before deciding whether there was any reason to be careful.
As he crossed the first edge of the pale-gold field, the Tier 2 layer reacted.
The holy formation recognized him immediately. Fine lines of light rose from the ground around his shoes and traveled upward through the air, testing the nature of his blood, the abyssal traces within him, the vampiric authority beneath his skin, and the holy power he had absorbed through previous battles and relics. The field pressed against him with the cautious force of a hand laid across a closed door, then stopped.
No burning followed.
No suppression entered his body.
No alarm spread through the city below.
Noctis felt the ward hesitate around his presence, its detection sequence unable to classify what had stepped through it. His immunity to Tier 6 holy power made the lower layers irrelevant as direct threats, and the Tier 2 field could do little more than recognize that something it did not understand had crossed into its range. He took another step forward, ready to test whether the formation would attempt to escalate.
The world folded.
There was no warning from the Vatican's ward system. No holy spear descended from the sky, no scripture formed around his feet, and no alarm burst from the city beneath him. One moment, the distant buildings, roads, trees, and domes remained perfectly clear through the morning haze. The next, the space around him bent as though an invisible hand had gripped the entire landscape and twisted it sideways.
The road stretched into a thin dark line.
The city skyline pulled apart into pale fragments.
The holy ward patterns fractured into countless white threads that spun around him, not breaking under force but being dragged away from their proper positions by something that had seized control of the space between one breath and the next. Noctis's eyes sharpened at once, and Sense Pulse spread outward on instinct, searching for a formation anchor, a hidden caster, a spatial boundary, anything that would explain how the world itself had been removed from beneath his feet.
The pulse returned nothing useful.
There was no road.
No hotel.
No city.
No Vatican.
The distortion swallowed everything before he could create a return point, and his surroundings vanished inside a cold flash of white-gray light.
When the light faded, Noctis stood on cracked ground beneath a sky with no sun.
The land around him was barren in a way that felt designed rather than abandoned. Pale dust drifted over dry earth without a real wind to carry it, while broken stone ridges rose from the ground in uneven lines that disappeared into a distant gray horizon. There were no buildings, no trees with living leaves, no roads, animals, people, or signs that this place had ever belonged to the human world.
The sky above him was white near the horizon and darkened to a dull gray overhead, empty of clouds and empty of any natural source of light. His shadow lay faintly against the cracked earth, but the illumination came from nowhere he could identify. The entire place carried the same unnatural stillness as a sealed chamber, except the chamber stretched farther than his eyes could comfortably follow.
Noctis did not move immediately.
Omni Eyes opened fully, tracing the ground, the distant ridges, and the pale dust moving across the battlefield. Sense Pulse followed, reaching outward in expanding waves that should have returned the faint structures of roads, living bodies, underground tunnels, or the distant outline of Rome. Instead, the pulse struck an invisible boundary far beyond the stone ridges and returned along itself in a distorted echo.
The space had been sealed.
It was not a simple barrier. The battlefield had been removed from ordinary coordinates and enclosed somewhere separate from the physical world, perhaps a hidden dimension, perhaps a formation-created pocket space, perhaps something older than either description. Noctis could still use short-range movement. Phantom Dash remained available, and Wraith Step responded when he tested the nearby shadows beneath a stone ridge. But there was nowhere to chain a return movement toward Rome.
Genesis Step remained locked, just as it had been throughout the trial.
Noctis lowered his hand from where it had hovered near his side. "Someone really didn't want me walking into the Vatican," he muttered.
The answer came down from above.
A sword struck toward his head with enough force to split the ground where he had been standing a fraction of a second earlier. Noctis moved sideways before the blade completed its descent, his body sliding across the cracked stone as a white-gold line of holy force cut through the earth beside him. The strike did not burn him, and the sacred energy rolling off the blade could not suppress his bloodline, but the physical weight behind the weapon was real enough to make the dodge necessary.
He turned as the sword rose from the ground.
The attacker looked human only in the broadest sense. It had a human-shaped body, a face composed of pale skin and sharp features, and hands gripping a long sword in a disciplined two-handed hold. Behind its back, however, spread a pair of broad white wings, every feather carrying a faint radiance that made the barren air around them seem darker by comparison.
The angel's armor belonged to another era.
Pale silver plates covered its chest, shoulders, arms, and legs, fitted with the practical precision of battlefield equipment rather than ceremonial clothing. Thin gold lines moved through the metal in restrained patterns, and the long sword in its hands held a clean holy edge that glowed softly where it had cut into the ground. The angel did not shout, ask a question, or announce a judgment.
It simply adjusted its footing.
Noctis's Omni Eyes settled over it.
Tier 6 Angel.
The display appeared with no additional explanation, but he did not need one. The angel's presence, the density of its holy authority, and the way it had attacked without wasting a single movement already told him enough. He had faced holy enemies before. He had fought angels in his own world, watched fallen angels fight, and survived attacks built around sacred power.
This one did not feel like any of them.
It did not move like a summoning.
It did not move like a holy construct.
It moved like a soldier.
A dangerous sensation crossed the back of Noctis's neck before the sword angel could advance again. He jumped sharply to the right, the motion carrying him just beyond the line of a spear thrust that tore through the space where his spine had been. The long weapon struck the cracked earth, and the impact sent pale fragments of stone outward beneath the glow of Tier 6 holy power.
Noctis twisted in the air before landing and saw the second attacker.
This angel also had white wings, though its armor was darker and more streamlined than the sword wielder's. The pale silver plating along its body had been reinforced at the shoulders and hips but left enough freedom around the joints for rapid shifts in direction, while the long spear in its hands carried engraved gold lines that moved faintly along the shaft as though the weapon breathed with its owner.
Tier 6 Angel.
The spear angel had positioned itself behind him while the sword angel took the front. It did not rush forward after missing the first thrust. Instead, it stepped to the side, keeping the spear angled toward Noctis's ribs while the sword angel reclaimed the central line. The two of them had not needed words to establish pressure from opposite directions.
Noctis's expression changed slightly.
The sword angel controlled the front.
The spear angel controlled his rear and flank.
Neither one wasted time trying to overwhelm him alone.
His hands moved toward the small gun charms at his wrists.
Dark crimson blood flowed across both palms, curling around his fingers before hardening into familiar shapes. Nocturne formed in his right hand, its dark body elegant beneath a thin crimson sheen, while Ruin settled into his left with the same smooth weight and controlled menace. The weapons had barely completed their shape before Noctis raised both arms and fired.
Blood bullets crossed the barren air in rapid succession.
The first shots went directly toward the sword angel's upper body, forcing it to move its blade from offense to defense. The angel cut through the bullets with clean, economical motions, each downward or angled slice precise enough to split the crimson projectiles before they reached its armor. The second stream targeted the spear angel, and it responded by rotating the shaft of its weapon across its body, letting the reinforced middle section knock the bullets aside in bright flashes of blood-red and holy-white light.
Noctis continued firing.
He did not use a single line of shots and wait to see what would happen. Nocturne and Ruin sent a controlled hail of blood bullets across the battlefield, changing angles between each pull of the trigger and forcing the angels to keep moving while he measured the speed of their reactions. The sword angel cut several bullets down, shifted its wings once to move laterally, and used the broad edge of its blade to protect the gap beneath its ribs.
The spear angel did not remain stationary behind its defense.
It advanced in short steps between impacts, using the spinning shaft of the spear to deflect shots while maintaining pressure toward Noctis's left side. The wing movement behind it was restrained, never flaring unnecessarily, but every small motion helped it adjust its balance and stay within the sword angel's formation.
Noctis lowered both pistols slightly as the first exchange ended.
They were good.
Not good in the way a powerful opponent could be good when raw strength made up for poor judgment. These angels understood spacing, timing, weapon lines, and the importance of not allowing a ranged fighter to create a safe pattern. They had recognized the threat of his pistols immediately, yet neither had panicked or broken formation.
A sharp whistle cut through the air.
Noctis moved before he saw the arrow.
It struck the cracked ground beside his ribs hard enough to burst a narrow crater of pale holy force into the stone. He had already shifted farther away when a second arrow descended toward the point where he would naturally have landed after avoiding the first. The third came lower, aimed at the path he would need to take to keep the sword angel from closing in.
His eyes narrowed.
The arrows were not random.
Someone had already read the formation.
Noctis twisted his torso sideways as another holy arrow cut past his ribs, its pale shaft passing close enough to disturb the edge of his burgundy jacket. The motion moved him away from the spear angel's follow-up thrust, but a new arrow arrived where his feet would have touched the ground. He turned the dodge into a side rotation, one shoulder dropping toward the dust before he forced the movement into a backflip that carried him over the arrow's impact line.
The moment his boots reached the ground, another shot came for the obvious landing point.
Noctis placed one foot against the cracked earth only long enough to launch again. His body rose into a twisting leap, his legs cutting through the air in a roundhouse-like arc as another arrow passed beneath him and struck a stone ridge behind his back. He let the momentum continue rather than forcing himself into an early landing, completing the first aerial somersault while Nocturne fired toward the sword angel below.
The angel brought its blade up and cut the bullet apart.
Noctis completed a second somersault as another arrow crossed the space where his torso had been. This time, Ruin fired downward toward the spear angel, the shot arriving at an angle that forced the second angel to tilt its weapon across its chest and deflect the blood bullet with the shaft. The spear angel could not advance while protecting itself, which gave Noctis enough room to complete a third rapid rotation through the air.
The final arrow came toward the ground beneath him.
He adjusted the angle of his body, landed in a low slide across the cracked stone, and fired twice at the sword angel before the dust had finished rising around him. The first shot forced the angel to lift its blade. The second came lower toward the knee, but the angel folded one wing sharply and shifted sideways just enough for the bullet to pass through the space it had occupied.
Noctis stopped at the end of the slide and rose into a guarded stance.
The archer had not revealed itself.
The bow attacks continued from somewhere beyond the stone ridges, striking from different angles while maintaining the exact rhythm needed to deny him a stable position. The sword and spear angels had not pressed during the aerial sequence because the arrows had already forced him to move through a narrow corridor of available space. The instant he reached the ground, however, both melee fighters began closing again.
Noctis fired at the spear angel's chest, then shifted his attention toward the terrain.
A flat section of broken stone lay near the spear angel's right side, angled just enough to carry a bullet beneath its weapon line. Nocturne fired into the slab instead of directly at the angel. The blood bullet struck the rock, skipped across its surface, and rebounded toward the spear angel's exposed flank from behind its guard.
The spear angel reacted at the last moment.
Its wings snapped open in a controlled burst, lifting its body just enough for the ricochet shot to pass beneath the lower edge of its armor. The angel landed farther back than it intended, its formation line briefly stretched wider as it regained balance. Noctis used the disruption immediately, sending two direct shots toward the sword angel while firing another bullet into a nearby boulder at a shallow angle.
The sword angel cut the first shot down.
It angled its blade to deflect the second.
The ricochet bullet came from the boulder behind its right shoulder, aimed toward the blind side created by its raised guard. The angel turned with alarming speed and brought the sword backward in a short reverse cut, splitting the bullet before it could reach the gap between its shoulder plate and wing root.
Noctis watched the movement closely.
They were learning.
Every surface around him could become another firing line, but the angels had already begun adjusting their positions to avoid standing near useful ricochet angles. The sword angel stepped away from the boulder. The spear angel kept more open ground at its sides. Both of them had recognized that direct fire was not the only thing they needed to defend against.
A new arrow came low.
Noctis moved left, but the spear angel had already shifted into the route. Its weapon thrust forward in a narrow line toward his abdomen, using the arrow to force him into the exact space where the spear could reach him. Noctis leaned away from the thrust and turned his torso toward the sword angel, which had moved in from the front with its blade drawn back for a heavy diagonal cut.
He did not turn toward the spear.
His left arm wrapped across the front of his body toward his right hip, Ruin held low behind his center of mass while he kept his eyes on the sword angel. He fired backward at the spear angel from the crossed position, the blood bullet leaving the pistol at an angle that looked impossible until it reached the space beneath the spear angel's breastplate.
The angel had expected Noctis to focus on the sword.
It reacted quickly enough to survive. The spear shaft turned sharply across its body, and the reinforced grip section met the bullet in a bright flash of red and white. But the deflection forced the angel to pull its weapon away from the follow-up thrust it had prepared, leaving Noctis enough room to slip inside the sword angel's next attack.
The sword came down toward his shoulder.
Most fighters would have retreated.
Noctis stepped closer.
He moved inside the strongest part of the blade's cutting line, letting the glowing edge pass just beyond his shoulder while his right arm rose beneath the sword angel's guard. Nocturne's muzzle settled directly beneath the angel's chin, close enough that the distance between weapon and target was measured in inches.
He fired.
The sword angel tilted its head upward at the last possible moment.
The adjustment was tiny, almost nothing, but it was enough. The blood bullet passed beneath the jaw instead of entering it, grazing close enough to disturb strands of pale hair and leave a faint crimson mark across the lower edge of the helmet. The force of the near miss carried the angel backward into a controlled backflip, its body rotating through the air while it maintained hold of the sword.
Noctis followed with more shots.
Nocturne fired once, then Ruin twice, tracking the angel through the rotation. The first bullet passed through the space above its chest. The second forced it to tuck one wing inward. The third would have struck its shoulder if the angel had not opened both wings in one hard flap, shifting sideways through the air with enough force to carry its body out of the firing line.
It landed cleanly several meters away.
Noctis did not smile, but something inside him had sharpened.
The angel had avoided a point-blank shot to the chin, transformed the near miss into a backflip, and used a single controlled wingbeat to evade follow-up fire. It had not merely survived because of Tier 6 durability. It had survived because it understood its body, its weapon, and the exact amount of movement required to remain alive.
Another volley from the hidden archer arrived.
This time, several holy arrows appeared at once, spreading across the sky in a pattern that did not target him directly. Two came from above. One cut low across the ground. Another aimed at the stone ridge behind him, clearly intended to deny a retreat through the shadow beneath it. The sword angel moved forward as the arrows descended, while the spear angel shifted to the opposite side and began closing the remaining space.
All three had attacked together.
Noctis lowered his stance sharply.
The sword cut passed above him, close enough that the air displaced by the blade tugged at his hair. The spear swept through the place where his upper body had been a moment earlier, its long shaft controlling the space behind him. From the lowered position, Noctis extended both arms outward, Nocturne aimed at the sword angel's abdomen and Ruin aimed toward the spear angel's midsection.
He fired both shots at once.
The sword angel reacted first, twisting backward and using a wing-assisted lift to pull its body out of the bullet's direct line. The spear angel shifted sideways behind a rotating guard of its weapon, the shaft moving fast enough to deflect the blood bullet away from its armor. Both avoided damage, but both had to give up the immediate pressure they had built around him.
The bow angel used the opening.
A second volley descended before Noctis could rise.
He did not stand into it.
Instead, he twisted his body into the ground movement, kicked one leg through, and let his shoulders and hips carry the momentum into a windmill rotation across the cracked stone. His back skimmed over the dust as his legs swept in a wide circle, striking the ground only when necessary to keep the motion continuous.
The first arrow passed over him.
The second came lower, and his rotating leg kicked it aside before it could pin him to the stone. The arrow broke apart in a burst of pale light, but the holy force scattered harmlessly past him. A third arrow crossed toward his torso, and he rolled beneath it while the windmill carried his body into another rotation.
The movement was not showmanship.
Each turn followed the next because the arrow trajectories left him no safer route. The sword angel had begun moving in again. The spear angel was repositioning to attack when he rose. The bow angel had placed the volley precisely to make standing dangerous. Noctis used the ground itself as the only remaining line that kept all three attacks from converging at once.
At the end of the rotation, he planted an elbow and forearm against the earth.
The support let him push upward through the momentum and rebalance himself before the next arrow could form. While his body was still low, one knee hovering near the cracked ground, he brought Nocturne up toward the hidden archer's likely position and fired.
The bullet cut toward an apparently empty ridge.
A pale flash appeared in midair.
The blood bullet changed direction as though it had struck an invisible wall, spinning away into the dust beside a broken stone formation. Noctis's eyes followed the deflection path, then the angles of the earlier arrows, then the faint disturbance in the barren air above the ridge.
He fired again.
The second bullet deflected in nearly the same place, but the holy concealment around the source weakened under the impact. A third blood bullet came from Ruin, aimed lower this time, not at the suspected position itself but at the ridge beneath it. The stone burst apart where the bullet struck, and the concealment finally broke.
A third angel appeared.
It stood above the ridge with white wings extended behind it, their feathers catching a faint pale radiance against the gray sky. Its armor was lighter than the other two angels' equipment, built around mobility and long-range control rather than direct collision. A long holy bow rested in its left hand, the string formed from thin radiant energy, while several condensed arrows hovered near its shoulder like pale fragments of frozen lightning.
Tier 6 Angel.
Noctis looked from the bow angel to the sword angel, then to the spear angel.
The formation was complete.
Sword in front.
Spear at the flank.
Bow controlling the distance.
The angels had not spoken once. They did not need to. Their positioning changed in response to each other's movement with the smooth, practiced rhythm of fighters who had trained together long enough to understand where every attack would force an opponent next. The sword angel guarded the center and threatened close-range cuts. The spear angel denied blind angles, rear movement, and open retreats. The bow angel turned every safe path into a potential target.
Noctis's heart beat faster.
The sensation surprised him for only a moment.
Since Alter had taken full control of his body, he had fought powerful enemies. He had destroyed fortresses, broken holy formations, faced angels, clergy, demons, and bloodline threats that should have frightened ordinary opponents. But this was different. These were not fallen angels bound to his command. They were not holy enemies who relied on overwhelming energy and expected that to be enough.
These were true angels.
Their wings were white.
Their authority was pure.
Their weapons were held with the quiet confidence of people who had spent a long time surviving battlefields far harsher than this barren space.
Noctis felt his blood shift beneath the red line of power that rested inside him. It was not hunger in the simple sense. It was anticipation. The Crimson Inheritor blood recognized the pressure of a real fight, one where the opponent could not be dismissed after a single glance or broken by letting them make an obvious mistake.
He licked his lips once.
"So this is what pulled me out here," he said.
The sword angel lowered into a stronger stance, placing more weight through its rear foot while its wings settled closer to its back. The spear angel widened its grip along the shaft, one hand near the center and the other farther back, preparing to change from controlled thrusts into more aggressive rotational attacks. The bow angel raised its weapon, and the arrows beside its shoulder multiplied until several pale shafts hung in the air around it.
Noctis adjusted his grip on Nocturne and Ruin.
The burgundy suit he had worn through the hotel, the vehicle, and the hill outside Vatican City no longer belonged in this battlefield. He fired twice at the sword angel while stepping away from a spear thrust, forcing both melee fighters to pause long enough for Crimson Arsenal to respond.
The burgundy jacket began to liquefy.
Dark crimson blood rose from the seams of the suit, flowing across his shoulders, chest, and arms in narrow controlled streams. The black shirt beneath it dissolved next, but the blood did not leave him exposed. It hardened immediately into fitted black armor across his torso, the material forming in overlapping sections along his ribs, shoulders, and forearms.
The transformation continued while the angels pressed him.
A holy arrow came from the bow angel's position, and Noctis leaned to the side while the remaining fabric around his legs softened into crimson fluid. The blood moved downward, forming reinforced black sections around his thighs, knees, and boots. Another arrow followed, and he twisted away from it as a long crimson trench coat unfolded from the streams circling his back.
The coat settled across the black armor in heavy red folds.
Its hem moved behind him as he stepped through the next spear thrust, and the final traces of burgundy fabric vanished into the Crimson Arsenal structure that had reshaped itself around his body. The sword angel's eyes narrowed slightly as the transformation finished, not with fear, but with the recognition that Noctis's clothing, weapons, and armor all belonged to the same blood-based ability.
Noctis used Phantom Dash.
The short burst carried him backward across the cracked ground faster than the sword and spear angels could close the distance, though it did not take him far enough to leave the battlefield's active formation. He stopped beside a low stone ridge and turned immediately, both pistols raised as the three angels shifted in response.
The bow angel fired first.
Three arrows descended in a staggered pattern, one aimed directly toward his chest, one toward the ground beneath his left foot, and one toward the shadow behind the ridge where Wraith Step might have offered a quick escape. Noctis shot the first arrow apart with Nocturne, moved around the second without committing to the obvious direction, and let the third strike the shadow without using it.
The sword angel came from the front.
Noctis fired at the angel's upper body, then aimed Ruin downward at a flat slab near its foot. The direct shot forced the sword angel to lift its blade. The ricochet struck the stone, skipped at a sharp angle, and came back toward the lower side of the angel's body where its armor left less room for movement.
The sword angel twisted away.
The bullet missed its side by inches and cut across the edge of one wing instead, shearing several pale feathers loose into the air. The angel did not react emotionally to the damage, but the slight shift in its posture showed Noctis that the wings were not invulnerable.
The spear angel moved the instant the sword angel gave ground.
Its weapon swept low, trying to cut across Noctis's legs while the bow angel sent another arrow into the space behind him. Noctis jumped over the sweep, turning his body in the air and firing behind himself with his right arm pulled across his back. Nocturne's muzzle pointed toward the left side of the battlefield even though his body faced the spear angel's opposite angle.
The shot went toward the bow angel.
The archer moved with a hard wingbeat, shifting sideways above the ridge before the blood bullet could reach its chest. The forced movement disrupted the arrow it had been preparing, and the pale shaft dissolved before leaving the bowstring. Noctis landed facing the spear angel just as its weapon came forward again.
Ruin crossed around his body toward his right hip.
He fired backward at the spear angel while keeping his eyes on the sword angel's approach.
The spear angel rotated the shaft sharply and caught the blood bullet on the reinforced grip section, but the deflection changed the timing of its thrust. The sword angel had expected Noctis to turn into the spear attack. Instead, he remained facing forward, stepped outside the sword's horizontal cut, and fired three rounds at angles that forced the blade wielder to defend rather than press.
The angels recovered before he could exploit the break.
The sword angel cut the first bullet down.
The second went wide because it had moved its body before the trigger pull.
The third was deflected by a fast turn of the blade that carried the bullet toward the ground instead of allowing it to reach the angel's shoulder. At the same time, the spear angel stepped back into formation, and the bow angel returned to its original elevation with a new set of arrows forming near its shoulder.
Noctis's coat shifted in the pale dust as he moved.
He had expected the angels to be disciplined.
He had not expected them to recover this quickly after every difficult angle. Their movements were not perfect, but they were close enough that every opening lasted less than a second. A ricochet shot could force one angel to move, but another would cover the gap. A close-range bullet could make the sword angel retreat, but the spear angel would take the pressure line before Noctis reached it.
The bow angel made certain there was never enough empty space to reset comfortably.
A dozen pale arrows appeared in the sky.
They did not fire as a simple volley. The bow angel released them in layers, some high enough to fall vertically, others traveling low across the ground, and several angled toward the routes Noctis would use to avoid the sword and spear. The arrows formed a shifting web over the battlefield while the two melee angels began advancing from opposite sides.
Noctis exhaled slowly through his nose.
The first arrow came high.
He moved beneath it and fired toward the spear angel's knee, forcing the long weapon to dip into a defensive block. The second arrow cut low across the ground, and Noctis stepped over it while turning his body away from the sword angel's descending strike. His left pistol fired toward the bow angel during the turn, while Nocturne sent a shot into the nearest boulder.
The direct bullet forced the archer to shift.
The ricochet came back toward the sword angel's blind side.
The sword angel recognized the angle and moved to cut it down, but the shift opened a narrow line between the sword and spear fighters. Noctis used Phantom Dash through the gap before either one could close it, appearing several meters beyond them with both pistols already raised.
The bow angel had anticipated the movement.
An arrow waited where he emerged.
Noctis twisted sharply, letting the holy shaft pass through the folds of his trench coat without touching his body. He fired twice at the archer while continuing the rotation, then dropped low as the spear angel's weapon swept through the space above him. The sword angel followed with a thrust toward his shoulder, and Noctis rolled beneath it, one hand brushing the ground as his pistols continued tracking the two melee fighters.
The fight had become a constant exchange of attack, dodge, counter, and recovery.
Noctis could not stand still long enough to build a normal firing pattern. The angels could not close casually because every step toward him risked a blood bullet from a line their formation had not fully covered. The sword angel cut through shots when it had to. The spear angel used the reach of its weapon to turn bullet paths away from vulnerable places. The bow angel kept the battlefield hostile, firing only when the timing would force Noctis toward the other two.
Noctis began tracking more than their attacks.
The sword angel always led the formation's rhythm. Its pressure determined when the spear angel committed to a thrust and when the archer changed the arrow pattern. The spear angel reacted fastest to direct blood bullets but relied more heavily on the sword angel's forward control before attempting aggressive strikes. The bow angel had the widest perspective, but its concealment had been broken, which meant it now needed the melee pair to keep Noctis from turning the entire battlefield into a long-range duel.
He fired another ricochet shot into a dead stone trunk near the ridge.
The bullet struck the hardened surface and curved upward toward the bow angel from below. The archer shifted away, but Noctis had expected that. A second bullet came from Nocturne directly at the space the angel had moved toward, forcing it to snap one wing open and rise higher.
The sword angel used the distraction.
Its blade came down toward Noctis's shoulder with a heavier force than before, the holy edge brightening as it cut through the air. Noctis stepped inward again, moving close enough that the sword's widest cutting arc became awkward. He raised Nocturne toward the angel's chin, but this time the sword angel had anticipated the angle.
It tilted its head before he fired.
Noctis adjusted and sent the shot toward the exposed side of its neck instead. The angel brought its shoulder up, letting the bullet strike the outer edge of its armor and burst into crimson fragments rather than entering through the gap. The spear angel attacked from behind at the exact moment Noctis's arm extended.
Noctis turned his waist, pulled Ruin behind his body, and fired backward.
The spear angel deflected the shot with the shaft, but Noctis had already shifted toward the sword angel's blind side. His coat flared around him as he stepped through the narrow space between blade and spear, then fired one shot into the ground near the spear angel's foot and another toward the sword angel's wing.
The ground shot burst beneath the spear angel's step, forcing it to lose a fraction of balance.
The wing shot missed the sword angel's body but cut close enough that it had to shift its white feathers away from the bullet path. Noctis did not stay to see whether either move created a larger opening. The bow angel had already drawn a new line across the air, and three arrows came toward him from different heights.
He lowered into another evasive turn.
The first arrow passed over his shoulder.
The second came for his ribs, and he leaned backward beneath it while firing upward at the bow angel. The third aimed at the ground beneath his next footfall, but Noctis used the recoil of his shot and the rotation of his body to change the landing angle, letting the arrow strike empty stone.
He had begun to enjoy himself.
The excitement in his blood did not make him careless. It made everything feel sharper. Every movement of the angels became more distinct. Every shift of a wing, every change in weapon grip, every small pause before the bow angel released an arrow became information he could use. His heart beat faster beneath the black armor, not from fear, but from the simple realization that the fight had finally demanded enough from him to hold his attention.
The sword angel advanced again.
The spear angel moved with it.
The bow angel raised its weapon and formed another layered pattern in the gray sky above them.
Noctis brought Nocturne and Ruin into a steadier line, his crimson trench coat moving faintly in the pale dust as blood aura gathered around the edges of both pistols. The battlefield had not been created to delay him. It had been built around his arrival, around the assumption that he would eventually approach the Vatican and need to be removed before reaching its walls.
Someone had known he was coming.
That question could wait.
First, he needed to break the formation.
The sword angel lowered its blade.
The spear angel shifted toward his right flank.
The bow angel released the first arrows.
Noctis moved before they reached him, and the barren battlefield filled once more with the sharp crack of blood bullets, the pale streak of holy arrows, and the controlled violence of three angels refusing to let him take a single clear breath.